Born Free
by presidentofteamjacob
Summary: I'm updating the summary because of some minor confusion - this is not a one-shot :-) It is a multi-chapter Gale in the Games fic for the 74th games. I've tried to stick to canon and characters to the extent possible. One heads up: not all the characters are as per canon - this fic will see some new tributes and go deeper in with a few tributes like Cato. Everlark fans - apologies!
1. Chapter 1 - Prologue

Prologue

(Gale)

Katniss moves through the woods, quiet and feline. A huntress in her element. I am strong and fast, I can be very quiet. And there is much I can do with a piece of rope, a few tricky knots. But she - she can sense her prey as if it were a part of her. At fifty, sixty feet away, I have seen her bring down an animal before it could blink. Of the two of us she is definitely the deadliest. Watching her now, hours away from my final Reaping, I feel a sense of calm.

_When I'm gone, she will be good enough for the both of us._

I remember the day I first met her as if it was yesterday. A little slip of a girl, trembling with fear and suppressed anger. Fear - at what I might do to her. Anger - at herself for being caught. And at me for accusing her of stealing. In District 12 we are often brought down to stealing, but we don't steal from each other. We only take from the Capitol what should be ours to begin with - like the bounty of the woods.

Watching her now I think back to all the time since. We have both come a long way. The initial suspicion and mistrust from then, to today, when we don't need words to understand one another. Over these four years I have seen her skills and accuracy improve to beyond perfect.

Of course, neither of us has had a childhood. With things being how they were, we never stood a chance. Maybe that's what makes us so hell-bent on giving our kid brothers and sisters a chance at having one. But even so, I had two more precious years than her with a father and the illusion of strength and relative safety he represented. That's why I am never surprised when I see how feral she can be on the hunt. She has had to grow up with the survival instinct of an animal.

I can be heartless too - but that has less to do with survival and more with being angry. An anger I can't seem to help feeling, and that only grows with time.

I like to think our partnership has helped her along the way. But if I'm honest, after all is said and done who can be sure which one of us has helped the other more? I can't.

Although it wasn't much of a childhood, I know the pact we made in the woods was the day we left whatever remained of innocence behind. It was a year ago almost to the day. Reaping was the next day. At the grand old age of 15, Catnip had her name entered sixteen times. Thinking of that number and the too-thin girl in front of me then, I remember the pain, the fury I had felt. I had seethed inside at how easily they could crush her and at what they would be destroying.

How small and safe that number sounds now, sixteen, to the twenty slips she will have in the bowl today. I had been in the bowl thirty-six times. Between the two of us I knew the odds of at least one of us being picked were amongst the highest of any two kids in the district. So we made the pact.

The thought of being picked had then, as ever, caused in me fear for the pain it would bring my family, mixed with a sliver of excitement I have felt as far back as I can remember at the thought of going up against the Capitol. Today the fear is even lesser, and the anticipation more. It's been growing since I can remember Reaping, as if all along I've been heading towards a reckoning. And maybe I have.

_Be free - or die trying_. One of those thoughts my mind has when I'm not looking.

I note that at no point have I felt fear for my life. I think this is because as far as I am concerned, we aren't even living today. Except when I'm in the woods with her.

She takes perfect aim to bring down a squirrel scurrying away at least forty feet away from us. I mentally recount the odds again. Forty two slips for me. If I am perfectly thorough then forty-three, because there is no way Rory is going into the arena as long as there is something I can do about it. I feel the looming worry for the coming years, when I can't be sure that I can protect them by going in their place.

I take a deep breath to will myself back to the present. One year at a time. What I can do about the Capitol in the coming years remains to be seen.

I want to be able to protect her too but the rules don't allow me to volunteer for her. I have faith though - surely my twenty extra slips mean I, not her, will be going into the Games. The thought of us both being picked is so crazy on so many levels that I don't even think it.

If she wasn't so good at what we do, I wouldn't be sane today. I would know my going into the arena meant certain death for my family. Rory is 12, as old as she was when she took over as soul provider for her family. I have taught him what I could in the confines of District 12 and I can see in him the same skill as my father, as myself. He has a keen instinct for trapping. But I would not let him risk being caught for poaching in the woods, and so he lacks practical experience. Even with my mother doing what she can there are so many mouths to feed, and food just gets more scarce.

That's why I am calm today because of her. Her skill is now the biggest reason I can get through every day without losing my mind. Because I know - even when I get called into the arena - she will not let them starve. We may not talk much but I know that girl like I know myself - and I know when I am gone she will do what she can do honor our pact. And she can do a lot.


	2. Chapter 2 - Fated

_A/N: Since Gale's point of view is not really told in the book and he is discarded pretty summarily from the storyline - I got to thinking a bit from his perspective. In my humble opinion, the only reason someone as outraged and recklessly brave as Gale (ref: he volunteered to be on the rescue mission to save Peeta from the Capitol later) would not have followed Katniss into the Games would be the pact they made the year before. He later tells her that taking care of her family was the one thing he had going for him._

_Seems to me that given his acumen with traps and survival skills and what not, Gale is a very smart guy. There is a small possibility he could have quickly realized that if he saved Peeta, Peeta's family would help take care of their families when he went. That's it, my little departure from canon. I am not very sure how convincing it is, but I feel it is a potential outcome of that situation._

_ I'm going to use a couple chapters here to lead up to the Games, when things will get really interesting (I hope!)_

_There will be no sudden jumping into lemons for Galeniss, that wouldn't make any sense. They are both guarded with their emotions for their own reasons, which I will also try to explore, and hopefully reach some sort of satisfactory conclusion with :) I hope the prologue helped you see what it is (I think) that Gale feels for Katniss, beyond her pretty face._

_That was it, had to get that out. No more A/Ns are planned. Enjoy :)_

_-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-_

(Gale)

Hard to believe its the morning of the Reaping. Sunshine, bread, cheese, berries…. Catnip. I could fool myself into thinking life could be this good.

I've kept my bizarre fantasy about us running away to live in the woods to myself for a really long time, but today I just blurted it out. It's all this sunshine and fresh warm bread messing with my mind.

I'm so careful, always so careful, not to give Katniss any reason not to trust me. I know to her I am her hunting partner and nothing more. So I am exactly that and never try to ask for anything more - at least until I can be sure that my life is my own to offer her. I have never wanted to convince her that we could be something more and then have to leave her for the Games. I don't want anything to hurt her again, the way I know she already has been.

I know firsthand what that mine explosion did to a kid whose father was in there.

Sure, she's grown up since I first met her but in so many ways she's still so young. I never worry about rivals - she doesn't have time to think about boys. This never troubled me. When I met her she was such a kid, I never saw her that way. There were always plenty of girls wanting to come with me to the slag heap.

All I knew since the day I met her was that I wanted to protect her. She was a pain to deal with really, suspicious and feisty, and she didn't seem to even care that I could snap her into two if I'd wanted. Something within me wanted to make sure she never lost that fire... even if she was born in Panem.

As time passed and she grew older, more and more often I'd feel those other girls aren't good enough, none of them, they aren't _right_, and I have to fight with myself to not say anything to alarm her, set off her natural instinct to flee.

If I ever lose her trust, I'm fully aware I might never get it back.

At my mention of us running away, she freaks out as I'd expect her to. But my mouth isn't done, it talks about kids and of another life. All pointless things that make her angrier at me for talking about things that can't be.

There - now I've gone and ruined this perfect morning, most likely my last in District 12.

But it doesn't stop me from dreaming.

-xox-xox-xox-xox-

Effie Trinket again, in that creepy fashion that all Capitol people follow. It leaves them looking barely human, and I guess that's about right. Even so her enthusiasm at the Games, the sheer honor of picking the slips that will decide which kids will die this year - it sets off something deep in my gut.

At least it helps me get through reaping each year. It's a lot easier to be angry than fearful.

When she calls out the first slip, I feel as if someone has punched me.

My eyes immediately turn towards Katniss who still hasn't absorbed what just happened. I know she will though, and before even she knows it, I know what she will do. I lunge towards her through the crowd to stop her. I can't let myself think twice about whether or not it would be right to stop her, all I know is I can't let her go.

The crowd is thick and slow to move, and before I am even halfway to her, she has volunteered for Prim. Even as my insides shatter I walk closer to her, where Prim is clinging to her. I want to be angry at Prim, for getting picked and sealing their fate, I want to feel angry at the Capitol for taking her from me. But at this critical juncture of my life, anger has deserted me. All I can feel is blinding pain.

I can barely meet Katniss' eyes as I pull Prim away from her and encourage her to follow through. It is done. Deep inside of me I know it is nothing different from what I would have done if I were in her place.

I can see her on the stage, and her stoic mask might work on others, but I can sense her paralyzing fear. It gets my mind working again. The pact. The pact will not let me volunteer, because I owe it to her to take care of her family now. If I desert them now, she will never trust me again. My only hope of saving her in the arena is to be picked by Effie Trinket.

But that would mean starvation for both of our families.

I want to tear something apart. A large part of me wants it to be Effie Trinket. I watch as she heads towards the boys' bowl, fighting with myself. If I volunteer, I lose her trust, endanger everyone we love. If I manage to save her in the arena, I'd have to die, although I'm not concerned with that. If I don't volunteer, and she doesn't come back, I lose her forever.

Every which way I go, I lose her. It is fated.

I think of my mother. I think of Posy. I look at Katniss who is still looking at Prim.

I watch Effie Trinket's lips move. I hear the name.

It isn't mine.

The baker's son.

My brain is no longer working. The struggle within me not to run and take his place is all-consuming. As I watch him move towards the stage, a hand is slow to let go of his shoulder. It's the baker, the boy's father. He grips his son's shoulder in a too-tight grasp, silent tears sliding down his cheeks. I watch as the same horror plays out, as it does every time. _Sometimes the Capitol gets the fathers, sometimes the sons. _

As I watch without really seeing, and the boy sets off towards the stage, something happens.

The baker turns his face to look directly at me. _Me._

I read his expression plainly. His eyes are pleading.

As realization dawns in my mind, I nod questioningly at him, looking a short way to my left where Vick and Rory stand. My query is plain, "What about the family?" As if he can actually hear my question, he nods once, and then closes his eyes as if to say, "Trust me." Fresh tears run from his eyes, but I can see his sincerity.

That is the only push I needed. The baker has the means, he has the bread, he has the money to save our families. Katniss will probably still be angry but her anger is the last of my concerns now. A path has suddenly opened up to at least try to keep everyone I love safe, and I am going on it.

I volunteer for Peeta.


End file.
